The old etymology of attraction and repulsion

L M Leteane | Friday February 19, 2016 15:13

Two such ‘totally unconnected’ language families are the Bantu language family (which includes Setswana) and the Indo-European language family: Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, the Germanic languages, English, etc. But, contrary to conventional thought, I have unearthed an ancient link between all languages and even consider such links in the specific context of ‘attraction’ and ‘repulsion’.

Beginning with ‘attraction’ itself, I find that it is rooted in a word – raka (meet) – that we have treated in past consecutive articles. ‘A’ is a prefix that means either ‘towards/belonging to’ or ‘away [from]’ depending on the context. ‘Ta’ means ‘come’ and in the past I have dealt with it in terms such as Tii-ta-an (Titan: ‘Mighty One (tii) [Who] Comes From (ta) the Heavens (an)’). The aggregate meaning of a-ta-raka is thus ‘come so as to meet’. Even the term ‘draw’ as meaning ‘attract’, though based on the Middle English term drawen, actually emanates from the Icelandic/ Old English term draga(n), which evidently relates to ‘drag’ (pull/ attract to oneself). In Latin, ‘attract’ is attrahere, and the key term is here rather than raka – thus a-ta-here (adhere).  Here, we can discern from Setswana, means ‘mix [up]’, as in hereta (source of ‘heretic’ a person who causes confusion, mixes up people). Of course, when things ‘mix’, they impliedly attract (‘come together’) – but the fact that ‘adhere’ now specifically means ‘stick to’, and not ‘mix’, clearly involves a semantic shift.

Another universal root word – a proto-term – that reverberates in diverse languages is oka (‘attract’ in Setswana). The English term ‘hook’ is thus basically ho-oka, and a ‘hookah’ is a pipe with which to suck (attract) smoke into the mouth. In Setswana, the term nyoka has the meaning of ‘having sex with’ but it comprised of (ne + oka: the y is a bridging sound, as when saying ‘the Okavango’ in rapid speech). It thus primordially means ‘meet through attraction’. In Sotho, nyoka means ‘beat with a soft stick’ and it has traceable semantic shifts that finally resulted in quite another meaning…a common occurrence in linguistics. From n’yoka (as in ‘meet by being attracted to one another’) we have the Sanskrit term ‘yoga’ (literally: ‘that which unites one [with god]’) and the English term ‘yoke’ – a bar or pole for joining two or more beasts of burden together.

Regarding the sense of ‘adhering’, the Setswana term koma (now kgoma: ‘touch’) relates to ‘gum’ in English. It effectively means ‘that which touches another [enduringly]’. The sense is still retained in that the ‘gum’ is what teeth have stuck into.

As further regards the mouth, koma is also ‘feed (attract) greedily into the mouth’. Amega (be touched) also has a connotation of ‘love’ (attraction), thus amare (Latin), amicus, amicable and many such related words. Yet another proto-term is nka (‘take [up]’). It led to words like ‘anchor’ – a large hook used by ships for mooring, which looks somewhat like the Egyptian ankh – and the English term ‘yank’ (ya-nka: [it] took [something by force]). The last proto-term we will consider under ‘attraction’ (that which draws (pulls) two things together) is towa. The proper root word is to-ha (come nearer to) and this evidently relates to ‘tow’. How does le-towa (net) relate to ‘tow’? A net is actually designed for towing and dragging in water because of the holes that let water pass through.

Let us now consider the etymology of ‘repulsion’. Conveniently for us, it is of the same etymology as ‘push’. The root of ‘push’ is obscure and only the latter-day developments of the word are discernible in Indo-European languages. For example: in Middle French it is pousse(r) but in Old French it is poulser. The latter is ostensibly based on Latin pulsare or pulsat: ‘beat such as to cause to vibrate’. However, this is the wrong etymology. Quite evidently, the two words  do not meet neatly; we cannot intuit the semantic shift except, very tenuously, to say that ‘beat’ is a form of ‘applying a force against’ and can thus be associated with ‘pushing’. But it is unconvincing.

Actually, pulsare is based on bolosa: bolo + osa. Beginning with the base word ‘olo’, we can relate it to se-olo (a cluster or mound). Thus, bo-olo has a genuine relation with ‘ball’ (although we treat it as borrowed). The suffix osa – quite like oga or ola – is and ‘undoing’, and exactly which one is used with what word depends on Setswana’s complex grammar rules. In original terms, we can see its ‘undoing’ nature in the term holosa (hula + osa); which is akin to lapologa (lapa + oga: with bridging sound changes well-known to linguists added in). Indeed, fula/hula means ‘pull [up], as happens to grass in grazing, and folosa: is the ‘descend’, the ‘undoing’ of the descent, which is thus ‘downward’. Bolo-osa, then,  gives the sense of a temporary bulge (‘bologa’) that subsequently dissipates after being set off through either a beating—as with cattle—or by words of encouragement or incitement (as in a regiment—a ‘lump’ of soldiers). That is why it is tied to pellere: ‘set in motion by beating’. In reality, the key word pulsa at the root of ‘push’ is based on pulo-osa, the undoing of a ‘pull’ (phulo) through the ancient undoing suffix osa. Thus, ‘push’ has no independent root-word; it is simply the opposite term. Now, from pulo-osa we can easily trace ‘repulse’.

Another word that reflects a sense of repulsion is the term ‘arogana’ (to separate). This, evidently, is the root of ‘arrogant’: ‘the propensity to stay apart and aloof. A simile of this is ‘Catholic’ which is based on kata (move away) + holo (great), and kata is made up of ka (like, tending to) + ata (‘spread out’). It was thus an institution that ‘tended to spread out greatly’: katoloha in Setswana.

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